Yaoundé (AFP) - Armed men abducted
a French priest in northern Cameroon,
officials and witnesses said Thursday,
nine months after Nigerian Islamists
kidnapped a family in the same border
region.
Georges Vandenbeusch, a Roman
Catholic priest who moved to the area
two years ago, had repeatedly ignored
warnings by the French authorities that
the region was dangerous.
France's foreign ministry said he was
snatched overnight from his home near
the town of Koza, about 30 kilometres
(20 miles) from the Nigerian border.
He was kidnapped by around 15 people
who burst into his Nguetchewe parish
base without a car, said the bishop of
the Nanterre diocese near Paris, which
has authority over Vandenbeusch.
"They first went to the nuns' house to
find money, there was none, and
Father Georges had the time to warn
the embassy," Gerard Daucourt told
reporters.
Vandenbeusch is 42 and had been
working in the area, where the Nigerian
Islamist Boko Haram group has
operated in the past, since September
2011.
French President Francois Hollande said
Paris was doing "everything possible"
to find and free him, but warned
French citizens against putting
themselves in harm's way.
"I would... ask all of my compatriots
who live or travel in what I would
qualify as high-risk areas to do nothing
to put their lives in danger or to expose
themselves to kidnappings," he said on
a trip to Monaco.
The foreign ministry has designated
the area, from where seven members
of a French family were kidnapped by
Al-Qaeda-linked Boko Haram in
February and held hostage for two
months, as a dangerous zone prone to
militancy and kidnappings.
"We had expressly advised him not to
stay on but he thought he should
remain there," French Foreign Minister
Laurent Fabius told AFP during a visit
to Morocco.
A French diplomatic source, who
refused to be identified, warned of an
"assassination risk" if his abductors
panicked.
A nun who worked with Vandenbeusch
told AFP the kidnappers spoke English.
Although Cameroon is predominantly
French-speaking, English is spoken in
several areas, notably near the Nigerian
frontier.
"They spoke English. We think they
came on foot. They were not hooded.
We do not know what they took from
his house. They were alone with him,"
Sister Francoise told AFP by telephone.
Cameroon government spokesman Issa
Tchiroma Bakary said Yaounde feared
that the priest had already been taken
out of the country, though he did not
say where to, and added that the
kidnap seemed to bear the hallmark of
Boko Haram.
'Don't worry, security here is good'
Father Henri Djongyang, another priest
present at the scene of the kidnap, said
Vandenbeusch was locked in his room
but the attackers "smashed open the
door and ransacked everything."
"They were certainly looking for money
because the father had a safe in his
office. They dragged it to the living
room but could not carry it away."
They then took the priest "in the
direction of Nigeria," he told Europe 1
radio.
In another interview to Radio France
Internationale, he said a young man
had seen the kidnappers make the
barefooted priest walk through the
village before fleeing with him on
motorbikes.
Vandenbeusch's former parishioners in
the Paris suburb of Sceaux were in
shock and a special prayer service was
planned for late Thursday.
"I've been shaking since I heard the
news. I don't think there is any better
priest," Catherine said as she lit a
candle for Vandenbeusch at Saint-Jean-
Baptiste church in Sceaux, where he
served for nine years before leaving in
2011 for Cameroon.
In a note published in the September
parish newsletter, Vandenbeusch had
written of fighting and shelling near his
home in the border region but said:
"Don't worry, security here is good."
Chantal Brault, the deputy mayor in
Sceaux, said Vandenbeusch knew of
the risks.
"He chose to take this risk because he
felt that he had been very spoilt in
Sceaux," Brault said, adding that
Vandenbeusch had wanted to pass on
his faith to "more complicated parts of
the world".
The latest kidnapping brings to eight
the total number of French hostages
held worldwide.
Four others are being held in Syria, one
in Nigeria and two in the Sahel region
on the southern fringes of the Sahara
desert.
In February, a Frenchman employed by
gas group Suez in Yaounde was
kidnapped together with his wife, their
four children and his brother while
visiting a national park just miles from
the Nigerian border.
They were then taken to neighbouring
Nigeria and held by Boko Haram, which
is blamed for a string of deadly attacks
since 2009 in an insurgency in
northern Nigeria.
The family was released in April. France
denied paying a ransom or launching a
military operation to secure their
freedom.
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